Tulane was the first university to accept Jeff, so it’s somewhat ironic that it’s the last place we’re visiting. But it takes longer to get here, so we wanted to wait until he was on vacation, and this year, that meant waiting till nearly the end of April because of the leap month.

We flew in yesterday, arriving at the hotel a little after 9pm CDT. And we got a pleasant surprise — they gave us a significantly better rate than we’d expected, because our trip was Tulane-afflilated.

This morning, we had breakfast and queued up for the St. Charles streetcar just after 7:30am. We were not alone; there were at least three other families who were also bound for Destination Tulane. And the streetcar driver took care of us, announcing when we were at the right place (I thought we were going to go at least one other stop, so I’m glad he did that). There was plenty of signage on campus, and we were met by an admissions person and directed to the right place anyway.

Tulane had laid out a nice spread for us (though someone pointed out the absence of matzah), and had a well-organized program, starting with a short talk by one of the admissions staff, then a long tour of campus, a student panel, lunch at Bruff Commons (on the University), a talk by the Provost, and a tour of a “model” dorm room. Then we sat in on a class in International Relations, wandered through the student union, and eventually took the streetcar back to the hotel.

I’d have to say that this was the best and most informative visit we’ve had; it was also the smallest group (maybe 150 people, tops, versus 400 or so at Willamette, and thousands at UC Davis and UCSB). Well, the tour at UC Santa Cruz was smaller, but it was strictly a bus tour, with very little interaction (no dorm visits, no classes; we didn’t even go to the student union or any food service facility).

Some of the things which I noted here:

• Students are assigned a faculty advisor (tenured) when they register, and they stay with that person until they declare a major (and many still work with their original advisor). Advising is manadatory freshman year; I think it’s optional after that, though the advisor has to sign certain paperwork (like changes of major).
• Double (and even triple) majors are pretty common (around 40%), and minors are also common.
• You’re required to live on campus for your first two year; about half of the juniors do, and maybe a quarter of the seniors. Tulane has on-campus apartments for upperclassmen, not just dorms. Most everyone lives within a mile of campus. There are shuttles to some off-campus destinations; if you want to go somewhere else, you’re on your own (you don’t get free use of the city transit system).
• Bikes are not nearly as common as on the UCSB and UC Davis campuses.
• Students are required to have two “service learning” experiences, which are normally tied to a class rather than being standalone “community service”. This is new since Katrina.
• Professors teach classes and are accessible, both during official office hours and other times. TAs lead labs and grade, rather than teaching sections.
• The core curriculum includes three semesters of foreign language, history, English, and a lab science, as well as the TIDES (Tulane InterDisciplinary Education Series, or something like that), which is taught by a professor your first year. All majors have a capstone requirement.
• All undergraduates are members of the Newcomb-Tulane undergraduate college; when you declare a major, you also become a member of the relevant school and department. Each school has additional core requirements, and then each major has specifics.
• Research opportunites exist for undergrads, even freshmen.
• There are many study abroad programs (summer, semester, or full-year), some of which can also fulfill a service learning requirement.
• They do a compatibility survey for roommates (like UCSB, and unlike Davis, which assigns randomly).
• The food at Bruff Commons was pretty good (they even had matzah available). The meal plan is carte blanche, so students are not limited to a certain number of visits (unlike UCSB and UC Davis), so one can pop in for an apple (say) and not use up a full meal credit.

Some other things that students mentioned:

• The career center is very good, and available as soon as Freshman year.
• You can buy stuff at your local Bed, Bath, and Beyond and have it available for pickup in New Orleans (or, presumably, at other colleges if there’s a store there).
• The optional pre-orientation “New Orleans Experience” is worthwhile.

We haven’t had much time to explore New Orleans; we took a quick walk after coming back from campus, but it was rather warm. So we retreated to the hotel for a bit, then went to dinner at La Crepe Nanou (recommended by the admissions office, and included in the Zagat Guide they gave us). The food was good (though we won’t order Coq au Vin there again — there’s bacon in it, which Diane found out just in time; they switched her order at no charge), though the music was a little loud. And the wines (by the glass) were very nice; I wish I’d written them down (their online wine list is downlevel).

After dinner, we took the streetcar and bus down to Canal Street, then walked over to Cafe du Monde, wandered through a bit more of the French Quarter, and then taxied back to the hotel. We hope to do a bit more touring tomorrow before flying home.

Work on Wednesday is going to be a shock, I’m afraid.

Yesterday, it was our turn to visit UC Davis for their “Decision Davis” event, designed to sell the campus to prospective students.

We drove up on Thursday night, stopping at China House in Vacaville for dinner – while I wouldn’t make a special trip to eat there, I’d be quite willing to go back if I was in the neighborhood. We spent the night at the Comfort Suites in Davis, which lived up to its name. And we had an excellent breakfast at Caffe Italia before going to the campus for the actual event.

We were pleasantly impressed by the campus and by the town. Even though the campus is huge, the relevant parts are walkable (but most students bike — and, like UCSB, bike theft is the biggest crime on campus), and downtown Davis is immediately adjacent to campus. The student government and the town jointly operate Unitrans bus service, which is free to students and has good service throughout town (a good thing, because housing is basically limited to first year students). I had to be careful when walking through campus, because there were bicyclists everywhere, and they weren’t interested in stopping for me — it reminded me of Amsterdam.

Davis has a Freshman Seminar program, somewhat like Willamette’s, but it’s not mandatory. Like other UCs, most lower-division courses have TAs for the discussion sections, so this would be the best opportunity to actually work with a tenured professor for the first year or two.

Some classes are constrained (again, like other UCs); they do a two-pass registration process, and then they have waitlists and “crashing” to get into classes that are otherwise full. *sigh*

Unlike UCSB, Davis invited us to eat in a Dining Commons along with current students; it was a much more pleasant experience than our 45-minute wait for Panda Express last week. There was a good variety of food (even Jeff found things he liked), and the cookies were very good. The dorms weren’t all that impressive, even by dorm standards; the one we toured had been built in 1960. So I guess students aren’t all that unwilling to move off-campus after the first year.

Like UCSB (and, I suppose, other UCs), advising is largely at the initiative of the student — they have a peer-advising program called The First Resort which is available in the dorms as well as in the Academic Advising Center, and which does most of the advising; faculty/staff-led advising is also available, but unlike some other schools we’ve looked at, it’s not mandatory.

Davis also reaches out to parents with the Aggie Family Pack.

The Memorial Union (student union) was a lively place, with good vibes, and Davis itself is definitely a college town, with coffeeshops (other than Starbucks!) and lots of little restaurants and shops.

Downsides? Well, it’s a UC, so it’s going to be under budget pressure. And you can smell cows from some parts of campus (apparently the Tercero dorms are on the ag side of campus).

Everyone we talked to was enthusiastic about the school; it definitely moved up on Jeff’s list (and mine).

Next stop: Tulane.